For Whom the Bell Tolls
by PrisonerPadfoot
Summary: The church bells rang out the hour after the shot was fired, and so they would ring again when it came time for him to die…


_She was late that day._

Melinda had never been late before.

It was her routine to walk the few blocks to his elementary school everyday. She would sit herself on a swing in the little park across the street and wait for him. Every school day Lukas found her sitting there waiting for him, and everyday they would walk home together. But that day her swing was empty. Lukas sat down on it and waited for her, but as the sky began to turn grey with storm clouds, there was still no sign of her. He leapt off the swing and walked home alone for the first time.

They had been walking home together for as long as he could remember. She had never missed a day before. Even at just ten years old he knew something wasn't quite right. Melinda would never forget about him.

He soon found himself walking past Melinda's school, an Anglican high with an adjoining church. Lukas came to a halt in front of the church as the rain began to fall. He craned his neck upwards to look at the window just below the bell tower. It was a beautiful circle of stained glass that depicted Jesus holding the Flag of England. The glass was illuminated from a light within the church. When he and Melinda walked home together, they would always pass by it without a second thought. He saw the window each Sunday at mass as well, though he had never really looked closely at it. Perhaps it was the growing darkness outside and the glow from within that made it particularly mesmerizing that afternoon. Maybe it was how the rain bounced off of the glass and made it shine, the way the beads of water rolled off of Jesus' face.

Lukas shrugged and continued on his way home.

At age twenty, Etsuko Nakamura had moved from Japan to the United Kingdom to study at Cambridge University. There she had met Arthur Lawliet, and soon after graduation they had wed and moved to London. When they married, Etsuko had converted to Anglicanism.

Lukas' mother was devout in her faith. She had taught both her children how to pray, and she made sure they were out of bed, dressed and ready for mass each Sunday. She prayed each night before she went to bed.

One night as he was sneaking down into the kitchen for a glass of water, Lukas had overheard his mother praying. He heard her say his name, and he sat down on the stairs to listen to her. She was praying for him, and for his sister. She prayed that they would find happiness, a purpose in life. She prayed her son wouldn't be lonely in his life. Lukas heard her sniffle slightly and that made him a bit sad, but he still didn't quite understand. He wasn't lonely. He had his mother, his father and his sister.

It was true that he didn't have any friends his own age, but it wasn't something that bothered him. He was perfectly fine being on his own, and besides, it wasn't like the other kids wanted anything to do with him. He had become used to being mocked by his classmates. They would laugh at the way his legs had a habit of curling up under him as he sat. They giggled at how he always seemed to press his finger to his lip as he thought. But perhaps most off all, they would bully him for simply doing well in school. While they struggled with arithmetic and grammar, Lukas quickly became bored with his lessons. All of his subjects came easily to him, and even if the other children called him names, he never let their words ruffle him. He didn't care what they said. They only wished they were doing as well. He ignored their taunting for the most part, until one day the previous school year one of the boys in his class had pushed him into the mud at recess. Lukas had stood himself up, the other kids laughing in a circle around him. He kicked the boy who had pushed him squarely in the stomach, and after that there had been no more pushing. The name-calling resumed a few days later and continued into the current year, but none of them would dare touch him anymore.

His elder sister had the same introverted way about her, though she had somehow managed to escape the bullying. She had friends from being on the tennis club, but outside of practices you would never know that little fact. She liked being alone in her free time. Lukas understood his sister in this way, and she understood him.

The downpour was heavy as Lukas turned the corner onto his street. He started to run as thunder clapped in the sky. He ran all the way to the end of the street to the large house on the corner. He whirled past the postbox with 'Lawliet' written on the side, past the white fence and the crowding of trees on the front yard. He ran up the steps and to the door, only to find that it was open ever so slightly.

That wasn't right at all.

Lukas pushed the door slowly open, trying to be as quiet as possible. He closed it behind him, though not all the way, and laid his backpack down in the hall next to his sister's tennis equipment. He abandoned his shoes and socks there as well. The house was quiet, oddly so. His parents were home, too. Their car had been parked on the street in its usual place. The house was never quiet when they were home.

For some reason calling out for them while the house was so silent seemed like a bad idea.

He crept towards the kitchen, and he didn't like what he heard. A groan in an unfamiliar voice, a high-pitched squeal. The rustle of clothing.

"You scream and I'll kill you," Lukas had never heard that voice before.

"Please, don't," was the response, and it was his sister's voice. It was airy, strangled, but it was her. He wanted to run. He didn't want to see what was going on in there, in his own home. But he couldn't stop himself from moving forward. Melinda was in trouble. But where were mom and dad?

He almost wished he hadn't found out the answer.

He stepped into the kitchen and saw his father laying across the table with the largest piece of his mother's fine cutlery stuck in his belly. Lukas had never seen so much blood.

His mother was slumped down against the refrigerator. She was bleeding from a wound in her chest. It looked like a gunshot.

And then there was Melinda. She was forced up against the sink by a burly man dressed all in black. He had a gun in one hand while the other was hidden under Melinda's uniform skirt.

Lukas could feel something inside himself breaking.

"Linda?" Lukas squeaked, and the man turned to face him. Melinda's haggard eyes widened as they fell upon him. The man's eyes were angry and narrowed.

"A kid?" he said and turned back to Melinda. His hand moved beneath her skirt, and Melinda struggled not to scream. "You said no one else lived here! Angus!"

There was a blur of movement after that. In one moment Melinda was thrown to floor and Lukas saw the burglar turning the gun toward him. In the next moment Melinda had jumped up from the floor and taken the gunman by the arm, looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.

"Run! Luka--!" she screamed, but was dead before she could finish saying his name. Her head snapped backwards as the trigger was pulled, the sound of the shot was oddly quiet and the impact terribly hollow. The gush of blood that followed was nothing short of horrifying.

Lukas was sprayed with warm blood across his face. Little splotches of red erupted onto his white shirt, and his mouth hung open in shock.

Melinda Lawliet fell dead at her brother's feet. The sound her head made as it connected with the tile floor, a sickening crack and grisly splatter, made Lukas' stomach turn. Her skirt flipped up on her thighs as she fell, and there was blood running all down her leg. Blood seeped out from her ruined eye and snaked its way to pool around his feet. He couldn't move, couldn't speak except for a strangled whisper.

Melinda Lawliet died with one gray eye staring into her brother's face, the other eye nothing but a swirling pool of blood. The last word on her lips had been his name.

Lukas turned and ran, and there was another crack of gunshot and something hot that grazed across his arm. He barely noticed that he was bleeding. He ran back into the hall and was forced to a stop as another man stepped down the stairs and into his path. Lukas recognized the ring on the man's finger. It was his father's ring.

The man was wearing his dead father's ring.

Lukas slipped past the second man, fleeting fingers grazing across his back and neck. He ran out the door as the one who killed Melinda shouted after him.

He ran barefoot into the rain-darkened street, screaming until neighbors turned on their porch lights and poked their heads out their doors. He ran as the bells of the church rang out the hour. The sound of bells followed him down the block and around the corner. They followed him silently into the Orphanage. They followed him through the rest of his life, and would ring again when his time was over. 

* * *

It was a year before Richard Putman and Angus Breckenridge were tracked down and arrested for the murders of Etsuko, Arthur, and Melinda Lawliet. As the case against them unfolded, the two men were tied to several more murders around England and Wales. Their trial dragged on for nearly a year and a half before the pair was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In a way, it was because of those two men that Lukas Lawliet had faded away from the world and became known simply as L. They drove him into the arms of the law, into the pursuit of those who would try and evade justice.

It was also because of them that he had finally decided to publicly join in the manhunt for the killer known throughout the world as Kira. He could still remember the day a year ago when he had seen their pictures in a copy of the London Herald. Both Richard Putman and Angus Breckenridge had died on prison, both from heart attacks. The media suspected it was the work of Kira. That same day L had made contact with the ICPO and offered them his aid in the investigation.

He did not try to lie to himself. When he saw Putnam and Breckenridge's photos in the paper he had felt glad for a brief moment. But the feeling soon faded away. Kira was acting under the law. He was killing men who had not yet received trial, men who were already serving their time as determined by the law of their respective countries. Such an extraordinary power to kill should belong to no one. Kira was not justice. One man's dictation could not be law. Kira was no better than the men who had killed his family. He was a murderer all the same, and L's experiment with Lind L. Tailor had proved Kira's willingness to kill for nothing but furthering his own plans. Innocent members of the FBI met their end by Kira as well, further fueling L's desire to catch him.

No, Kira was nothing but a murderer.

L was amused at where the case had taken him. From Light Yagami and Misa Amane to the board members of Yotsuba and the shinigami Rem. He wondered briefly where Rem was lurking. For being bound to the Death Note they had taken from Higuchi, she sure had a way of disappearing.

L sighed and rose from his chair, slipping on his shoes as he stood. He left his room and shuffled out in the hall. If the older man had not said anything L would have not even noticed him. The sounds in his head were starting to become deafening.

"It's raining outside," Watari said, and L came to a stop beside him.

"I know," L said, and Watari's hand fell on his shoulder.

L smiled. At least there was one person in this world whose motives he did not have to question. Not the man who had given him a home and seen the genius in him as a child. He had never spoken directly to Watari about what he had witnessed all those years ago, but he knew he didn't need to.

Watari let him slip out from beneath his hand and L continued to the stairwell. He climbed up until he could go no further. He pushed open the door leading to the roof and stepped out into the rain.

He saw flashes of colored glass and the Flag of England in the hand of the Savior. The bells rang in his ears until he could barely hear the rain as it came down in sheets upon the concrete.

The bells were loud today. Louder than they had ever been.

He looked up at blackened sky and from the corner of his eye he caught sight of Light Yagami. Light was calling out to him, but L could not hear him over the bells. L cupped his hand to his ear and Light ran out into the rain to meet him. Still the bells rang. Even with Light standing right beside him, it was difficult for L to process what he saying. L spoke to Light, but he wasn't sure any of what he was saying made any sense.

He wondered if it meant that this case would be the death of him.


End file.
